More details plus the world’s most abstract screenshot after the jump.
Ready?

Yeah.

So, between the Arcada Mia’s site and the press release I’ve gathered that you’ll be managing a dynasty across many generations. Each track on the above wheel represents a social caste, and each generation of your family travels around once, perhaps travelling upwards or downwards as well, before being replaced by the new generation. In the site’s words:

Spend tokens to move forward. To get tokens, move backwards. It’s that simple, a simplicity which masks its depth. Every turn, the optimal use of tokens can change tremendously.

In the greater scheme, you must juggle competition and cooperation with peers in your social caste. Raising children strains resources. Courtship is a race. And stories of the age challenge and reward, but keep aware. Not every reward is worth the price, nor is every downturn disaster.

And in the highbrow words of the press release:

To date, casual games have been wrapped in fairy tales and comic books, because few understood that games can be fine art. Not to lessen the greatness of many existing games, literary interactive storytelling is difficult to make accessible and engaging. Perhaps, as Hemingway helped break literature out of stuffy tomes, a casual game will emerge to bring fine art to a ready audience.

In ‘arcada mia’ story emerges from play like a monument emerging from bricks which emerged from clay and straw. Your tactics set up little stories. Choose ways to resolve them like a mason sorting bricks to build the monument of your family legend. In turn, stories reward or challenge. They influence tactics.

So, unique-sounding strategy where tactics create stories, and stories influence tactics? Colour me very interested indeed. I’ll be taking the closest possible look at Arcada Mia when it’s released in early 2011.

It’s way too rare that developers set out to design a game which creates stories. Sure, there are tons of games that create interesting stories while playing (like Dwarf Fortress) but most of the time they aren’t designed to do that.

This sounds potentially interesting. Having in mind that we don’t know anything about the game. But we’re told what impression of the game we’re supposed to have. I’d prefer to actually get that impression myself.

“We can’t tell you anything about my book, but pages 50 through 100 build a lot of suspense.”

Not a very indie-like approach, though. Sounds more like a hype machine for yet another AAA full price title no one will remember in two years. Which is unfortunate. Still hoping for awesomeness, though.

I would kill for a redone Oregon Trail. Not necessarily a clone, either. I’m sure there could be some depth there: random events including helping natives who might help you later on, or you could massacre them for an immediate reward.

Progress is made through performing a small number of mini-games, so if that isn’t your thing you probably won’t like it. I haven’t played it more than a couple of hours, but it seemed like the story could play out in many different ways depending on whom you were speaking to, and in what order.

I thought DHGiT was a great idea and neat theme strung out like a beaten hide across the brittle bones of rote and uninteresting gameplay. The highfalutin’ disingenuous bullshit of that second quote above speaks to an attitude that will likely drop this game tidily in a similar “cool idea, too bad about the game” category for me.

KoDP is one of those works of genius that, bafflingly, no one has seemed much interested in imitating. A good game, and a great engine for generating stories – like DF, something that made losing fun. And colorful. Well worth a retrospective, especially since the developers are still selling it.